Reinvention: Photographer Style

(la réinvention + mongolian-word guest appearance)...

Let’s get it out on the table right away (tout de suite).

I love the concept of reinvention (la réinvention). Maybe because it seems to contain within it, quite naturally, beginnings.

And I do love a good beginning.

I know that many beginnings also contain an ending, sometimes dramatic, sometimes more drifty. A letting go. A floating away. In any case, at some point, the thing that is ending crosses a kind of horizon line. And we begin again—fully, or mostly, free of it.

Beginnings are often tender, and though they can be exciting, they can also be hard to… begin.

In my life, that’s the sweet spot I’ve found—to be there for people who want to start something (in the best of ways).

Of course, I also love a good beginning for myself, though I sometimes find that more challenging. It can be easier to help someone else find permission to “begin again” than to grant permission to oneself.

Temul is a Mongolian word I first encountered in a book by Zoe Chance. Figuratively speaking, it’s “the look in the eye of a horse that is racing where it wants to go, no matter what the rider wants.”

Inspiration running wild.

Change riding the wind.

No time to worry about permission.

And, we’re off!

So, yes, I should have photographed a horse for this post. But I didn’t have one about the house. In lieu, you get a spoon (or two). (My younger daughter likes to find tiny tea niceties for me that will take up less room, since I’ve run out of space for my continually-growing teacup collection. Plus, I love darling little spoons.)

As someone who’s fascinated by reinvention, of course I take note when I see it.

Lately I’ve been reading about the history of photography, including a chronology of some of photography’s most influential artists.

Not too far into this endeavor, I was struck by the number of photographers who reinvented themselves rather temul-style. Because I want to remember who they are, and because I think it’s interesting, I’ll tell you about their reinventions:

Bill Brandt (1904-1983) left architecture for photography and became one of the most widely collected of photographers.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was propelled into photography by a gift. At age 48, she received a camera from her daughters. No one could have guessed she’d become the astonishing photographer she became, photographing the likes of Thomas Carlyle and Henry Longfellow, and illustrating Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.

Robert Capa (1913-1954) pivoted away from political science to photography. His first published photograph was of Trotsky. He moved to Paris when Hitler rose to power and literally gave himself a new name and persona as a “famous American photographer.” (He was Hungarian, born André Friedman.)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French!) (1908-2004) shifted from art studies to photography. He worked for the French Resistance and filmed the liberation of Paris in 1944. A founder and “father” of the Magnum photographic agency, he inspired many photographers.

Ernst Haas (1921-1986) dropped out of medical school, first taking up painting, then photography. He led the way in color photography.

John Heartfield (1891-1968) started as a career artist and changed to photography, especially as a form of protest. That’s not all that changed. Like Robert Capa, he dropped his birth name (Helmut Herzfeld).

Frans Lanting (1951- ) abandoned his environmental studies career in favor of nature photography. His work has led people to a greater appreciation of wild life.

Herbert List (1903-1975) started out as a coffee merchant and turned to photography upon meeting Andreas Feininger in 1929. He experimented with surrealism and the avant-garde.

Man Ray (1890-1976) Yes! Another name-changer! Born Emmanuel Ridnitsky, he took on the name “Man Ray.” A draftsman turned artist, turned photographer (though not entirely), he was an experimenter with both camera and darkroom techniques.

Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956) was a painter, sculptor and graphic designer who delved into photography and developed the practice of “examining in the round”—taking shots from different points of view, thus ever-after influencing both photographers and cinematographers.

Okay, there seems to be a dearth of women on this list, though, to be fair, it’s a list of photographers who appeared to have reinvented themselves.

That’s why, even though they were in the book I’m reading, Diane Arbus, Eve Arnold, Margaret Bourke-White, Graciela Iturbide, and Annie Leibovitz aren’t on my “reinvention” list.

Apparently, the French aren’t particularly concerned about their purpose in life. That’s what MyFrenchLife™ – MaVieFrançaise® notes in Why the French Don’t Obsess Over Purpose.

To permit your temul rather than corralling it, you might have to drop that notion of purpose for a moment, à la the French. Because, after all, what if your inspiration, the thing that’s running wild in you, can’t quite be explained yet? (Or, ever?)

Like, say, if you want to run a newsletter on creativity and tea and French and photography. And it’s all you want to do. And you just have no idea why it feels so terribly important. I mean, you’ve got other things to do. Purposes! (End of self-referential tangent. 🙂 )

Sometimes our temul is deceivingly gentle in its first approach¹. Or it feels like a sudden shaking-loose². Or a journey we must create.³

But it’s no less compelling.

Today I’m encouraged by this incredible list of photographers who allowed their temul to run its course, regardless of how they first encountered it. The world is richer for their reinventions.

What is wanting to run in you?

I wish you the courage to let it have its way, if only for a while, so you can experience something positive and new—maybe even a surprising reinvention.

(traduction: as always, L.L. :)

P.S. The little silver spoon my daughter gave me is vintage, by a company that Nowhere-on-the-Internet can you find a good article about: GEWE. The company was Swedish, and my little spoon has the M on it, signifying it was made in Malmö.

below ↓ as in life, trying a different angle can yield a different effect.

1. Quelque chose a chuchoté et je veux le suivre. Something has whispered and I want to follow it.

2. J’ai senti quelque chose se libérer—un nouvel amour, une reconnaissance soudaine. I felt something shake loose—a new love, a sudden recognition.

3. Je veux créer le chemin en avançant. I want to create the way as I go.